One of my greatest discoveries after college was that life moves as fast as you want it to. Actually, I should say as fast you make it. If playing computer games all night is your sort of thing, go for it. If you would rather research or brainstorm business ideas, you can do that too. One of the differences I’ve noticed between school and “the real world” is that my schedule is much more predictable now, considering my job starts and ends the same time each day. Of course there are certain weeks when a project runs long and the days feel like forever, but for the most part each week is pretty consistent. Taking advantage of free evenings (and the occasional weekends), I’ve been head-deep in researching retirement plans, stocks, home buying, and a slew of web related ideas and projects. Being busy is better than being bored.
One thing I’ve finally done is take time to explore a few personal web ideas. Working freelance has been great and it helps with things like learning business skills and paying the rent. However, one downfall is that you’re learning can be restricted since you’ll most often be working with technologies you’ve already mastered. If the job called for a skill you didn’t yet have, you probably wouldn’t accept the work in the first place. Conversely, personal projects allow for a greater freedom to test new ideas and practices. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed devoting time to some of my recent web concepts and hope to be unveiling finished products in the not-so-distant future.
I mentioned occasional free weekends above because two of my brothers have planned weddings this summer, one was a couple weeks ago and the next is in October. Being family events, both weddings have been extremely fun but time consuming to plan and prepare for. Kudos to Kathy for putting up with all the excitement and being a huge help with designing programs, ironing out dress issues, and lending a hand whenever possible.
As for this blog getting dusty over the past four months, my only excuse is that the transition from school to work entailed a lot of new things. I do hope to write more often now that Kath and I are getting settled in and I think a redesign might be the trick to lure me back…